Dead to Me

Dead to Me

              The morning sun pierced through my curtains, assaulting my eyelids. I reached for my comforter to pull over my face like a little girl that didn’t want to go to school. If I could hide within my feather filled fortress, the sun would cease fire and retreat. With eyes still closed, my hands explored their surroundings, only to find couch cushions and a throw blanket that was purely decorative. It could barely provide warmth. How was it supposed to shield me from the barrage of sunbeams spawning from beyond my sliding glass door? I scoffed at the uselessness of the pathetic piece of material as I mentally prepared my eyelids to open and reveal my position in the battlefield, allowing me to plan my attack.

              With eyelids continuing to block the aggression of daybreak, I explored the landscape. I felt the familiar texture, soft and warm. I fell asleep on my couch again. I thought back to the previous night, struggling to sit upright. Through the smoky clouds swirling in my brain, I remembered drinks flowing like continuous waterfalls in the rainforest. My hands that now explored the comfort of my living room furniture had a tempestuous love affair with smooth glasses full of liquid whose only job was to lift my spirits before the journey I would trek the following day. Glasses clinked the night away with strangers whose smiling faces now faded from my memory. A whiskey fueled amnesia.

I told the strangers of the journey I would soon be embarking upon. We toasted and celebrated my bravery. The reality was that the very thought of my impending adventure brought beads of sweat to my forehead and caused my knees to buckle so furiously that I was forced to sit on the hard surface of the shaky bar stool. What began as a night of searching for smiles at the bottom of a bottle quickly morphed into a night of debauchery full of loud singing, clumsy dancing, and counterfeit smiles.

“Last call!” sounded in my head as I continued trying to remember the night’s end. I felt the lips of a faceless stranger touch mine: warm, wet, and awkward like a 7^th grade dance. My new cheerleading squad and I stumbled out the pub’s door leaning on each other as we fought an unspoken battle with our respective centers of gravity. Our laughter filled the silence of the emptying parking lot as we bid each other adieu. I stumbled towards my car, feeling the affectionate stranger’s eyes upon me, knowing I would likely never see him again. Even if I did, I wouldn’t know who he was.

Before I could blink, I woke up in my living room, head spinning and thoughts racing from the previous night’s escapades. With last night’s clothes on my body and whiskey still on my breath, I struggled to sit up. I forced myself to stand, knowing the only way to remove the hatchet from my forehead was to reach the sanctity of my bathroom and retrieve the Tylenol from the medicine cabinet. My knees buckled with each step towards my relief. After what seemed like a century, I reached my destination. I steadied myself on the bathroom sink before reaching towards the cabinet. There it was! My salvation! That beautiful red and white pill bottle! I was never so thrilled to hold a piece of plastic in my hand before. Just as I began fighting with the childproof cap, I felt the all-too-familiar rumble emerging from deep within my gut, the rumble that comes from the depths of your soul. I was going to taste that whiskey again.

I threw myself at the toilet and barely lifted the seat before whiskey, bile, and regret raced up my throat and out my mouth. I hung my head in the bowl as I reached for the toilet handle. Without moving my head from its new home, I pulled the handle and felt the wind from the swirling water. I opened my eyes and looked through the tears at the tornado in the toilet, a perfect display of my brain’s activity at the time. I lifted my head from the bowl and laid it on the seat. The ceramic was cool on my cheek, which eased my whiskey induced fever.

I mustered as much strength as I could to bring myself back to my feet. The sink was only a few steps away, but it may as well have been on another planet. My hands on the wall synced with my bare feet on the tile floor as I made my way towards the sink. Once there, I again attempted to ingest my wonder drug. The directions scolded me as I shook four pills into my hand and then my mouth. I splashed cool water on my face and hovered over the sink for a while as I watched the water drip from my face and down the drain.

When I finally looked up into the mirror, I saw a stranger that I didn’t want to recognize, a stranger that has been looking back at me since Jen died. I searched for some type of answer in my bloodshot eyes. I tried to remember how life felt before tragedy tore me apart with its razor-sharp teeth and spit my chewed up remains into the cesspool that was now what I called "daily life.”

I shook the rest of the water from my face as I willed the unpleasant cognizance away. I would have time to curl into a cave with those thoughts later. It was time for me to face my demon. I made a promise to the one person I loved above all else. She was the person who never judged me for any of my flaws. She never preyed upon my weaknesses, even though she was privy to them all. I was never small or petulant in her eyes. She was my strength, my heart, my oxygen. She WAS all those things… until she wasn’t. Since that dreadful day, she was nothing more than decaying flesh falling from bone, an empty body immobile amongst the earthworms. Why was I insistent upon going on this journey? I knew I made a promise to Jen, but what was the point? Realistically, I didn’t have to go. It’s not as if she would know if I went or not. She was currently enjoying her pallid pajama party.

As I left the bathroom and walked begrudgingly into the living room, I looked at the couch with hearts in my eyes. I could already feel the cushions contouring around my body like a warm embrace. I stood at the edge of the couch as my thoughts raced from the cozy cushions to my journey and back again. After arguing with myself for some time, I looked to the ceiling and threw my hands in the air. I grabbed my purse, snatched my keys from the mantle, and raced out the front door.

The car’s engine roared as I drove down the highway. With the windows open, air whipped my hair around like flames dancing in the moonlight. I inhaled the fresh air as deeply as I could, imagining the buffoonery of the previous night leaving my body as I exhaled. I was still unsteady in my own body, praying for this feeling to end. Although I knew once the anesthesia from the whiskey subsided, the emotions and reality of what I was doing would flood my soul and I would be forced to face the situation in its grotesque entirety.

Whiskey had quickly become my best friend. Jen couldn’t be there for me, but that beautiful amber liquid never disappointed. It always answered my call, never sent me to voicemail, never left a text message unread. We laughed together, cried together, partied together. It was by my side night and day. I never felt alone. Sometimes whiskey became overbearing and gave me a headache, but I knew that regardless of how much we fought the night before, I could always count on it to warm my heart from the inside out.

I went numb as I watched the trees on the side of the road blur into watercolor shades of green. I told myself daily that I was fine without her. I grew up alone and would die alone. I didn’t need to tether myself to another person. My heart began bleeding through my eyes as I tried to convince myself that was true, that it wasn’t just a façade. I was a broken woman whose mask was becoming as scarred, tattered, and worn as her soul. Jen’s uncanny ability to see the beautiful in the mundane was buried along with her in that velvet lined coffin. I needed her spirit. My face flushed as I gritted my teeth and choked the steering wheel. She was gone. She was truly gone. As the tsunami swirled through my consciousness, the reality of the situation made itself known. I would never be the same without her. I woke from my trance and noticed the car veering off the road. I regained control and  watched the blur that separated the lanes. Those white lines on the highway were a perforation, separating who I was before from who I am now.

I made the right into the parking lot and parked near the entrance of the building. Had I been forced to walk any distance to the doors, my bravery would have dissipated with each step until it was nothing more than steam rising from hot concrete. I stood staring at the glass double doors, the barrier separating me from my demon. My body froze. My brain continued to scream at my hands, telling them to grasp the handle, but I couldn’t. I pushed with all my might, but my hands wouldn’t budge. I would live the rest of my days as a stone sculpture at the art museum’s entrance.

The door opened slowly as a group of art enthusiasts exited. The straggler at the end of the line proved chivalry was still alive and held the insufferable slab of glass open for me. “Are you going in?” he asked. I nodded and walked through, hoping my mask appeared unscathed.

The museum was eerily silent. As I ventured through the maze of colors and mediums, I was overwhelmed by the cacophony of my shallow breaths and rapidly beating heart. I finally reached THE hallway, my destination, to fulfill the promise that I made while under the shroud of naivety, believing I would never actually have to live up to my word. At the end of the elongated corridor it stood, Jen’s painting. It was a sullen piece that depicted a young girl painted in varying shades of black, white, and gray. She was seated in the middle of the stretched canvas with her head resting on her knees that were pulled to her chest. In front of her was a cracked and shattered red heart, bleeding until it could no longer beat. It was titled “John.”

Tears clouded my vision as I read the title. Never had a four-letter word held such weight. This small word carried immense macabre materiality. I remained fixated on this sullen girl and her bleeding heart when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I turned to see who this invader was that broke my hypnosis. My eyes captured long black hair, perfect ivory skin, profound brown eyes that saw to the bottom of my soul. “Jen,” I choked, believing I was in a hospital bed kept alive by tubes, machines, and a group of doctors and nurses. I reasoned the grim reaper must be close if I was being reunited with my dead best friend. Well, maybe I would finally get some rest, a permanent vacation from late nights and early mornings full of crowds with no names or faces. My phantom delicately placed my hands in hers. She looked directly in my eyes. I wasn’t in a hospital bed. I was in an art museum standing with my ghost and her painting. “But you’re dead.” She shook her head.

My heart leapt from my chest. I flung my arms around her. “You’re not dead!” “No, I’m not,” she replied as she hugged me so tight that I thought I would burst. If I did and it killed me, I would happily die complete, knowing I was able to hug Jen one more time. Then, it hit me like the headache after a long night of drinking. I broke away from her and pushed her hard in the chest. She staggered backwards. “You’re not dead!?” She reached for me, saying she could explain. “No!” I screamed through the tears of rage and betrayal. “I’ve been lost and tortured for so long because of you! How could you do this to me? I thought you cared about me and you were able to lie to me and just walk away?” My screaming echoed through the museum, tearing through the silence with a freshly sharpened knife.

“I’m sorry. I can explain,” she said, eyes glistening with tears. Nothing she could say would justify the pain she caused me, all the nights of self-medicating, all the tear-soaked pillows during bouts of anguish-filled insomnia. “You have to listen to me. I did what I had to do to survive.”

“What do you mean, survive?” I was puzzled by her verbiage.

“You remember my ex-boyfriend, John?” I nodded. I remembered him in too much detail. He was a monster whose snarling teeth dug into Jen’s soul. The purples and blues on her skin mirrored the bruises he left on the essence of her being. “Things escalated to a point I never expected after we broke up. He was seething with a rage I had never seen. The abuse I suffered at his hands when we were together was atrocious, but he fell apart when I left him. He couldn’t accept that it was over. It started innocently enough. He would leave cards and flowers on my doorstep. I would find teddy bears on my car when my shift at work was over.

“Then, things took a turn. He started calling and texting me incessantly. Every time my phone made a noise, I would look down and see his name. I begged him to leave me alone. This only pushed him further towards the ledge. Since I wouldn’t answer his calls anymore, he began making himself known in other ways. He would be sitting on the other side of the café when I got my morning coffee. I would leave work and notice him standing across the street looking towards the building. He never said or did anything. He wanted me to know he was there. I was living under the delusion that it was a horrifying coincidence. I knew that wasn’t true. I knew I was in danger. I pushed those thoughts aside. He escalated because I was ignoring him. I started getting death threats though my voicemail, text messages, and notes on my car and in my mailbox.

“I went to the police with everything. They granted me a restraining order, but they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him. A piece of paper would never protect me. My eyes constantly darted around looking for threats. All seemed calm for a bit, but it was the eye of the hurricane. Living under a blanket of false security, I let my guard down. One night, I made the mistake of leaving a window unlocked. That night, he crawled through my window and entered my bedroom as I slept.

“I woke up to him rubbing my back the way he did while apologizing after he beat me. He told me he loved and missed me. I screamed and told him to leave. He slapped me across the face and told me he wasn’t leaving. I screamed at him again and reached for my phone to call the police. He showed me the knife he brought with him. He said if I touched my phone, he would kill me and my family, including you. He said we were meant to be together. I cried and begged for my life. He was frenzied. He waved the blade around and said if he couldn’t have me then no one else would. He jumped on top of me and plunged that knife into me over and over until I couldn’t move. I held my breath and prayed he would stop. After what felt like hours, he removed his sweaty body from mine, covered in my blood. I made sure I didn’t move or breathe so he thought I was dead. Eventually, he left.

“I knew the torture would never end if he knew I survived, so I faked my death. I needed everyone to believe I was dead so he wouldn’t go after you or my family. I felt like I died again when I came to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to talk to you again. Before I died, I knew something was going to happen, and soon. That’s why I made you promise to meet me here if I passed away. I had to be able to say good-bye to you.”

“How did you know I would be coming here today?” I asked.

“I’ve been watching you from afar. I couldn’t talk to you, but I had to at least see you. I’ve been hiding in the shadows and unfortunately watching you suffer. I’m so sorry.”

I understood why she did what she did, but it would take a long time for me to heal from it. I looked lovingly at her. “I forgive…” I stopped mid-sentence as my face turned white and eyes opened wide.

“What?” Jen asked as she studied my face.

A low voice grumbled from behind her, “Hello, Jen. Nice to see you’re alive and well.”

Jen gasped, “John!”